The Study of EFL Teacher Discourse in Reading Skill Using Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy

Mostafa Morady Moghaddam, Zargham Ghabanchi, Shirin Malekzadeh

Abstract

This article aims at investigating EFL teacher discourse while presenting reading skill. Moreover, the relationship between teacher discourse and learners’ proficiency level as well as learners’ cognitive state were studied based on Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy. This paper sheds light on some important aspects of teacher-student interactions in reading comprehension skill. Thirty two EFL classes were observed and the way teachers interacted with learners while presenting reading activities was analyzed and teachers’ voices were audio-recorded. This research was conducted on three phases; (1) pre-reading; (2) during-reading; and (3) after-reading. Using Bloom’s taxonomy, the researchers found that most teachers use action verbs which are related to concrete end of the taxonomy regardless of the learners’ level of proficiency and their cognitive state. The findings of this study made it clear that a) there is little congruency between teachers’ discourse and learners’ proficiency level; b) teacher discourse is so limited and is incapable to target higher-level thinking processes which are placed in more abstract levels in Bloom’s taxonomy; and c) higher-level thinking processes are to a great degree dependent on learners’ language proficiency.

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